A group of Wisconsin police officers had planned to spend Monday training to care for victims of mass trauma events when late in the morning a student in second grade called 911 to report an active shooting at a nearby school in east Madison.

“They left the training center immediately and came down here – doing in real time what they were actually practicing for,” said Madison Police Chief Shon Barnes outside Abundant Life Christian School, where the shooting took place.

When they arrived, officers gave life-saving measures to several people with gunshot wounds and found the shooter, 15-year-old student Natalie Rupnow, dead on the scene. According to police, evidence suggests Rupnow, who went by the name “Samantha,” killed herself.

A teacher and another student were killed, police said, while six were injured, including two students who have been hospitalized in critical condition.

The attack, which comes just days before Christmas break, has plunged the small, tight-knit community into mourning. Students had a week full of festivities to look forward to, including a holiday concert and an Ugly Christmas Sweater Day, according to the school’s website.

 Madison Police spokesperson Stephanie Fryer said five other people were injured, with those injuries ranging from minor to life-threatening. Barnes said his department believes the shooter was a student at the school. Mandatory Credit:WISC via CNN Newsource
 

The tragedy marks the 83rd school shooting across the United States this year – surpassing 2023 for the most school shootings in a single year since CNN began tracking such incidents in 2008.

In interviews with CNN affiliate WISC, survivors of the attack – some as young as 7 or 8 years old – recalled screaming in the hallways of the school, saying they were “really scared” and “really sad.” Parents who were notified of the shooting described anxiously waiting to hear about their children’s whereabouts.

“Thank God, they were safe. But the trauma – it’s a lot, because I’m sure they lost friends and teachers, which is not OK,” said Mireille Jean-Charles, a mother who has three kids attending the school. “And I don’t think they’ll be OK for a long time.”

As detectives continue to comb through the crime scene and a home in northern Madison, they are also seeking additional search warrants. A motive behind the shooting remains unknown. Rupnow’s parents have so far been cooperating with investigators, Barnes said, and will not be charged in connection to the shooting “at this time.”

“We’re not going to interrogate students,” Barnes said. “We’re going to give them an opportunity to come in and speak to what they may have saw when they feel ready, which is why some of these questions can’t be answered.”

Students went through the motions of a shooting drill

Like all students at the K-12 school, Rupnow entered Abundant Life at the beginning of the school day. Shortly before 11 a.m., while inside a classroom during a study hall of students from mixed grades, she pulled out a handgun and opened fire at her peers, police said.

Students at the school, who were well-trained in shooting drills, quickly registered that the attack was real and “handled themselves brilliantly” though they were “clearly scared,” said Barbara Wiers, director of elementary and school relations for Abundant Life.

While law enforcement officials wait for witnesses to come forward with new information, they are pursuing other leads to gain clarity on a timeline of events, clues that could determine Rupnow’s motive, and details about the firearm she used.

Authorities are aware of writings that have been posted by a person with alleged ties to Rupnow, Barnes said, but have not been able to verify its authenticity. He said authorities have not located the person who made the post but that they are seeking help from the FBI.

A residential property in northern Madison said to be the suspect’s home was cordoned off and searched on Monday – with video from CNN affiliate WTMJ showing the home’s main door removed and windows detonated with stun grenades, according to several neighbors interviewed.

“I heard the news this afternoon and thought, well, we’ll just drive by the main drag, and there it was,” one neighbor told WTMJ. “The front door was taken off and nobody was around, and the detectives are in there mopping up the mess.”

Earlier Monday, Barnes said the suspect’s home had been searched and police are seeking additional search warrants. Rupnow’s father, he said, had spoken with police at one of their facilities. “We have no reason to believe that they have committed a crime at this time,” Barnes said, referring to Rupnow’s parents.

In recent years, law enforcement has charged the parents of children who carried out shootings at their school – such as the father of 14-year-old Colt Gray, who carried out a mass shooting at Apalachee High School in Georgia, was charged with 29 counts earlier this year.

An ‘unthinkable’ tragedy

Police have asked the community to refrain from holding vigils at the school, which they say remains an active crime scene and was being monitored overnight.

A candlelight vigil has been scheduled for Tuesday night, with the city mayor and education officials expected in attendance.

Madison police are also expected to hold a briefing at 1 p.m. Tuesday, where they could release the names and ages of the victims, including those who have been hospitalized. Police had earlier said that they wanted to make sure all family members were notified before the victims’ identities were made public.

In a statement published Monday, Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers announced all flags over federal installations and facilities statewide would be lowered to half-staff until December 22, in honor of the victims.

“As a father, a grandfather, and as governor, it is unthinkable that a kid or an educator might wake up and go to school one morning and never come home,” he said. “This should never happen.”

A secure hold on several district schools was lifted, and schools in the Madison Metropolitan School District will resume classes Tuesday.

Ending the fall semester how it started

The fall semester is headed into its Christmas holiday break like it began – with a mass shooting.

Rice University in Houston, Texas, witnessed an apparent murder-suicide on the first day of classes on August 26. The following week, a 14-year-old shooter killed four victims at a high school in Winder, Georgia – making it the deadliest school shooting of the year.

The shooting at Abundant Life also marks the latest shooting to take place at a small, private Christian school – and among the 56 to have taken place on K-12 grounds.

Last year, a shooting at The Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee, left three 9-year-olds and three adults dead.

Earlier this month, two boys ages 5 and 6, were in critical condition after a shooting at a Christian school north of Sacramento in Oroville, California. The private school, Feather River Adventist School, is affiliated with the Seventh-day Adventist Church, part of the Protestant Christian denomination whose followers believe the Bible is the infallible word of God and in the second coming of Christ.

CNN’s Jessie Yeung, Jennifer Feldman, Steve Almsay, Taylor Romine and Michelle Watson contributed to this report.